By Gail Marsh
While vacationing in Florida, moored boats in waterways are a common sight. Making the news lately are squatters who have moved into some abandoned, moored boats. Local law enforcement struggles to address this issue. Hearing about this I wondered, could squatters move into my RV?
Leaving your RV behind
Our time in sunny Florida is quickly coming to an end. In talking to other “snowbirds,” I learned that many RV owners in our park will leave their RV behind. Rather than driving their rig back north, RVers simply pay to store their RV at their favored campsite until next winter rolls around. It’s a common practice.
Could RV squatters move into my RV?
RVers know how easy it can be to breach a typical RV door lock because many RVs share the same entry key. Many RV locks can be opened by a locksmith or even an amateur with a set of lock picks. Barring any of these methods, a squatter may gain entry by simply breaking the RV door lock or emergency window to gain access.
Risks?
I asked our RV campground owners, and it appears that the greatest risk of squatters breaking into and taking over an RV is where the campground owner or caretaker does not live onsite. If you plan to leave your RV parked in a campground long-term, this is something to consider.
Another kind of RV squatter…
A Florida man has been struggling to remove a squatter from his land for months. It’s an unusual case. It started because of the property owner’s kindness. Tommy Kramer’s stix-n-brix home was damaged in Hurricane Idalia and was inhabitable. That’s when Kramer was told about a post on Facebook. A man posted that he needed a place to “park his fifth wheel for a week or two.” Kramer generously offered the use of his front yard.
“It’s now been five and a half months!” Kramer said. Disgusted and frustrated after several attempts to get the squatter off his property, Kramer notified the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
This squatter case is unusual, for sure. The property owner owns the land but does not own the squatter’s RV. Kramer contends, “He knows what he’s doing. I’m sure he’s done it before.”
Meanwhile, the large RV parked in Kramer’s front yard makes it impossible for the property owner to work on repairs to his home.
Getting law enforcement involved
Recently, the Florida legislature passed House Bill 621, which awaits the governor’s signature. In the bill, property owners may request immediate help from the sheriff’s office to remove squatters, including RV squatters, from their property.
In Kramer’s case, law enforcement recommended that Kramer file an unlawful detainer. This differs from an eviction because a landlord-tenant relationship does not exist in this case (no verbal or written agreement to pay rent).
Stay tuned to see what happens next.
##RVT1149b
Thank you, Gail! That is crazy! 🙁 The very idea!?!?! 🤔😯🙁 Thank you for the warning! Safe and sunny travels! 🙂
As the old saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished”.
I’ve seen these type postings a couple times through the years. Thankfully our state has a 14 day notice to evict law. Still, if this were to happen, it would leave us without use of our S&B home for 14 days – given we were away long enough for someone to claim squatters rights (and how long does that take?). If someone is squatting in a home and gained access illegally but without the intent to burglarize then that is breaking and entering – a criminal offense. We have an alarm and remote monitored camera system for our S&B that when activated would result in a call to the sheriff’s department. Prevention is the cure here.
Squatter’s rights? What’s that?
Otherwise known as adverse possession: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession. In reality it would be difficult for a squatter to prove adverse possession because of the number of years of “open and notorious” use such proof requires in all states. It’s mostly of concern to private owners of large acreages of land, where a squatter could exist for a long time without being noticed. Note that most government-owned land is not subject to adverse possession rules, i.e you can’t acquire title to government land by occupying it for a certain length of time.
Thank you for that explanation.
same as illegal rights. guess everyone in the world is now an american citizen in waiting
The terrible Florida Governor, heartless One in Wokeness has signed HR 621 to end the stupidity of someone with zero rights to any structure, house, boat, RV, tent claiming the assumed right to occupy. i.e. Squatters’. Beware…… in Florida it is no longer a “civil matter” BS costing an Owner $$$ and months as these pigs destroy your property to make them g.o.n.e. Proof of ownership by way of a tax bill, registration and a simple affidavit to the local Sheriff’d Dept and with police present they are gone. They come back double criminal complaint. Result? The Squatters’ get free housing in the county jails. Bring back the jail road crews. The free rides have ended at least in Florida.
You have a great governor.
Please!! Do follow up on this! As a Boondockers Welcome host, this is scary.
One person dealt with a squatter in his mom’s home who had produced a forged lease to the cops using a unique method. He had his mom create a new lease dated that day naming him and waited until the squatters left. Then he went in the house and changed the locks. When they came back he called the cops on the trespassers. He never touched their stuff until the cops arrived. Thankfully, the squatters had not turned it into a meth lab.
This topic constantly baffles me. A squatter is a trespasser yet, you can’t immediately/easily remove them. But if they come inside your home while you’re there, you can. That makes no sense to me. Some of our laws seem backwards.
Aren’t the illegals coming across the borders squatters?
I believe thats under the Smith & Wesson law!
Snoopy
I think you misspelled people.
I missed the word ‘people’ in his post but I did notice the proper use of the word illegals.
The more I see these stories the more glad I am we made a somewhat expensive decision with our larger travel trailer. While we occupy it seasonally, we pay to leave it on a FHU site year-round. I do all the regular maintenance while we are in residence, store everything but the power cord and pull in the slides before we leave. When we return, we kick out the slides, reconnect the utilities and we are back in residence. The park manager has a key in case of emergency. Unlike the storage yard, park staff eyeball our RV daily as they do grounds maintenance.
RV locks are easy to change and upgrade to a better style lock.
It’s all part of the plan. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: It’s not fair for us to have more than one place to live when others are homeless, even if we have to import our homeless. When they have brought our economy to its knees and impoverished all of us, (except, of course, the uber-wealthy) we will need the government to save us, making it all-powerful. What a glorious day that will be! Time to reread 1984, folks.
There was a time a long long time ago in a World far away you called the Police and squatters were asked to leave OR kindly escorted off the property OR encouraged to leave OR roughly rushed to the edge of the property OR brutally thrown out protecting the well earned rights of the tax paying public.
It beats me how any state could allow squatters. Here, they climb over my locked gates, but I’m here to run them off and call police. $1,000 fine for trespassing, and I get pictures of them and license plates. The guy with the RV in his yard, I would have had it towed off after the couple of weeks if that was the agreement, I don’t know what trouble that would be; they would probably stick him with storage costs.
cite the guy for trespassing. dont acknowledge any verbal agreement